THE ARABIAN DESERTS. lOo 



tower up into rugged and insulated peaks, but their flinty 

 bosoms supply no humidity to nourish the soil ; they concen- 

 trate no clouds to screen the parched earth from the withering 

 influence of a tropical sky. Instead of the cooling breezes 

 periodically enjoyed in other sultry climates, hot winds fre- 

 quently diffuse their noxious breath, alike fatal to animal and 

 vegetable life. The steppes of Eussia and the wilds of Tartary 

 are decked by the hand of Nature with luxuriant herbage, but 

 in the Arabian deserts vegetation is nearly extinct. The sandy 

 plains give birth to a straggling and hardy brushwood, while 

 the tamarisk and the acacia strike their roots into the clefts 

 of the rocks, and draw a precarious nourishment from the 

 nightly dews. 



Were it not for the wadys, or verdant spots lying here and 

 there among the hills, and the various wells or watering stations 

 supplied by periodical rains, the greater portion of Arabia must 

 have remained unpeopled, and for ever impervious to man. 

 In a country like this, where whole years occasionally pass away 

 without a refreshing shower, the possession of a spring is not 

 unfrequently the most valuable property of a tribe. There are 

 large tracts, however, where the luxury of water, as it may well 

 be called, is unknown, and where the desert extends for many 

 a day's journey without affording the traveller the welcome 

 sight of a single well. 



This extraordinary land is inhabited by a no less extraordinary 

 people, divided into two great classes, w;idely different in their 

 pursuits : the inhabitants of cities and towns, who live by 

 tillage and commerce, and the natives of the desert, who follow 

 a pastoral and predatory life, and consider the former as a 

 separate and inferior race. Through all antiquity this charac- 

 teristic distinction has remained inviolate, and as it is founded 

 in the nature of the soil is even now as strongly marked as it 

 was in the times of Abraham or Isaac. 



In personal appearance, the wandering Arabs or Bedouins 

 are of the middle size, lean and athletic. The legs though 

 fleshless are well made, the arms thin, with muscles like whip- 

 cords. Deformity is checked among this nomadic race by the 

 circumstance that no weakly infant can live through the hard- 

 ships of a Bedouin life. The complexion varies from the 

 deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are 



